Florilegium of Garrigou Quotes on the Manuals

From The 3 Ages

We have not given this study the form of a manual because we are not seeking to accumulate knowledge, as is too often done in academic overloading, but to form the mind, to give it the firmness of principles and the suppleness required for the variety of their applications, in order that it may thus be capable of judging the problems which may arise. The humanities were formerly con­ceived in this fashion, whereas often today minds are transformed into manuals, into repertories, or even into collections of opinions and of formulas, whose reasons and profound consequences they do not seek to know.

Moreover, questions of spirituality, because they are most vital and at times most hidden, do not easily fall into the framework of a manual; or to put the matter more clearly, great risk is run of being superficial in materially classifying things and in substituting an artificial mechanism for the profound dynamism of the life of grace, of the infused virtues, and of the gifts. This explains why the great spiritual writers have not set forth their thought under this schematic form, which risks giving us a skeleton where we seek for life.

From the sense of mystery

Pages 110–111

The term “chiaroscuro” is used to describe a way of painting. It refers to a manner of handling or distributing the light and darkness found in a painting in a way that helps to detach the figures in the paint- ing. The chiaroscuro provided certain artists with a great resource for obtaining this relief. Painters enamored with light, such as the Véronèse and numerous other artists of the Venetian school, use it very little. They seek to indicate the plans of objects in the midst of nuances, tones, half-tones, and pristine colors. For them, the background of the paint- ing is more often as luminous as the foreground. There is something similar, in the case of the intellectual viewpoint, in most of the phil- osophical and theological works that use very little (or virtually no) intellectual chiaroscuro. With great brevity, they provide an exposition of the errors and difficulties of great problems and exclude the shadows as much as is possible. However, it is also often the case that truth is very little placed in relief by this method. Thus, in many of the manuals of philosophy and theology, one does not see the difficulty that drives the very problems being discussed.

De Revelatione

Around 126n76 (I have a problem with my PDF pagination)

1. Some modern manuals of moral theology contain almost nothing other than casuistic theo-

   logy, and in them moral theology appears like a science of grave and minor sins to be avoided rather than a science concerning virtues to be perfected. Likewise, many modern treatises of ascetic theology and mystical theology do not proceed fully enough from the rightful foun- dation of moral theology concerning the nature and progress of the infused virtues and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus, they come to be constructed in too empirical a fashion and are lacking in doctrinal value. Ultimately, these defects lead to the diminution of the notion of the eminent unity of sacred theology.

2. This same critique can be found in the beginning of De Beatitudine almost word for word. The English translation, however, is bad.
   

Also, page 149

As regards the theoretical part of the treatise on revelation, one must note that frequently, in theological manuals, this part is reduced to a brief prologue concerning the possibility of revelation and of the miracles by which revelation can be known. Such a prologue hardly suffices for the defense of revelation against rationalists. Indeed, they begin from the denial of the supernatural order and set up naturalism as a fundamental principle in accord with which the true historical methodology must be instituted. Such a methodology excludes all supernatural facts from the history of Christian- ity, and also from the history of all other religions, because [they hold that] the supernatural order is a priori impossible.

Order of Things

page 167

Now, is this the same as saying that critical realism dispels all obscurity in these matters? Oh, most certainly not! And while certain manuals of Thomistic philosophy speak little about the mystery of knowledge (because their primary end is to insist on what is clear and absolutely certain about knowledge), if true Thomists were asked to write expressly about the mystery of sense knowledge, or about the mystery of intellectual knowledge, and about their relations to one another, they could easily show that we find here a marvelous chiaro- scuro, more beautiful than all of those painted by Rembrandt. And as, in this chiaroscuro, the two elements that compose it mutually buttress each other, the true Thomist does not wish to suppress the mystery but, rather, to set it forth in its true place. He has as much sense of mystery as does anyone else—certainly much more than the Cartesian idealist as well as the materialist—for, not wishing to deny any of the elements of the problem, no matter how distant they may be from one another (i.e., matter and spirit, as well as the sensible and the intelligible), he knows that the intimate mode of their union remains (and forever will remain) profoundly mysterious. This is what we still must show, though without in any way diminishing the first, unshakable certitude which we have discussed in this chapter.

Page 234

The order to follow in psychology, at least in a work of Peripatetic philosophy, is obviously that of the De anima and not that of the theological treatise De homine.13 Granted, it is easy to write a manual of philosophy by transcribing the parts of the Summa theologiae that are related to being, truth, the sensible world, the soul, God, and moral thought. However, a philosophical treatise should be something more than such a juxtaposition of texts.

Page 239-40

he doctrine of act and potency is also the principle of the classical proofs of God’s existence and the foundation of the Nicomachean Ethics: a power is spoken of in relation to its act, and its act with respect to its object;25 accordingly, man, as a rational animal, must act rationally, according to a fitting end. In brief, the distinction of act and potency is the foundation of the whole of Aristotelian thought. Therefore, it is sovereignly important to show how Aristotle reached this utterly fertile distinction and to show how the existence of real potency (really distinct from act, no matter how perfect it may be) is for him the only way to reconcile the principle of contradiction (or, identity) with the existence of the profound becom- ing which reaches down to the very substance of corruptible beings.26

To present this doctrine concerning potency and act in another, a priori manner, as happens in many manuals, is to suggest that it has merely fallen from the sky or that it is only a simple, pseudo-philo- sophical translation of common language, whose worth still must be established, as has been said by Henri Bergson. In such an undertaking, there is no longer any profundity in analyzing matters. One is content  with some quasi-nominal definitions of potency and act, and it is no longer clear how and why potency differs from the simply possible being, from privation, as well as from imperfect act or from the Leibni- zian force / virtuality, which is only an impeded form of act.27 Likewise, one can limit oneself merely to enunciating the relations of potency and act in the axioms proposed as commonly received in the School [i.e., the Thomist school, Suarezian school, etc.] without seeing their true value on which, nevertheless, everything depends. We must admit this fact: this fundamental chapter of metaphysics, i.e., regarding act and potency, remains in a state of great intellectual poverty in many manuals when we compare them to the first two books of Aristotle’s Physics and to the commentary that St. Thomas left us concerning it. The method of discovery has been too neglected in philosophy, a method which is founded on the very nature of our intellect, the very least among created intellects.

Page 240

We must admit this fact: this fundamental chapter of metaphysics, i.e., regarding act and potency, remains in a state of great intellectual poverty in many manuals when we compare them to the first two books of Aristotle’s Physics and to the commentary that St. Thomas left us concerning it. The method of discovery has been too neglected in philosophy, a method which is founded on the very nature of our intellect, the very least among created intellects.

Page 242

It goes without saying that natural philosophy, conceived after the manner of Aristotle and St. Thomas, does not treat of creation (i.e., the production ex nihilo of the being inasmuch as it is the being of sensi- ble things). This topic pertains to Metaphysics, and it discusses it in an appropriate manner after having proven God’s existence by then discussing His relations with the world. In many scholastic manuals written after the 18th century, creation is instead discussed at the beginning of cosmology, before even having proven the existence of God in rational theology. This represents another disadvantage of the order adopted from the time of Wolff.30

Page 276n6

As some have noted, the ever-present importance of this treatise on prudence would be quite clear to modern thinkers if only two words were added to its title: “Concerning prudence and the connected moral virtues, in relation to the formation of conscience.” Prudence, which directs all the moral virtues, is so fundamental that no human act is good without also being prudent. And despite this fact, numerous modern manuals of moral theology, which do devote a large place to the treatise on conscience, quickly and silently pass over this virtue, the principal car- dinal virtue. They sometimes dedicate only eight or ten pages to it and seem to forget that right and certain conscience is an act of prudence, whose formal object must be determined, as well as its proper nature and connection with the other virtues.

Gardeil on Evolution (very end of multi-article series)

But (on that last day) there will begin, under the direct influence of the glorious and glorifying Christ, the ultimate psychological evolution that will know no end.  Grace will be transformed into the light of glory, and in this light, man will see God as he is, sicuti est (1 John 3:2).  Its activity will pour forth over the body itself, which once upon a time came forth from the lowliest world of matter: “He will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).  And under the breath of the Spirit, man will undergo his ultimate transformation: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Here, human evolution will come to an end.  But the believer glimpses further on, in the very heart of the Trinity, a mysterious activity of which our supernatural evolution would seem to be a distant imitation, our psychological evolution a dim image, and material evolution a faint vestige.

-Ambroise Gardeil, “L’Évolutionisme et les principes de saint Thomas (III: Conciliation),” Revue Thomiste 4, Old Series (1896): 216–247 (here 247)

Random Casuistry Discussion

[From an online discussion regarding casuistry, its necessity, etc.]
[Remarks to Brian Besong:]
By the by, Brian, we're definitely on the same page on a number of things. I was just reading your review of Schuessler's text, which I was so glad to see out. (I was doing work on this domain a year or so ago and missed it. We're getting it at our seminary library, so I look forward to reading it. It looks like, finally, there is something to cite other than Deman's work.) It's funny, I come from a Thomist tradition that's hard on the casuists (not just S. Pinckaers, concerning whom I am tepid in my admiration, but Garrigou, Labourdette, Gardeil, et al. too), but I actually share with you the need to reinvigorate proper casuistry in moral theology. (I would say that it actually should be part of each and every treatment of a particular virtue, with general remarks in the Treatise on Conscience—envisioned as the tail end of the Sub-Treatise on Morality in the Treatise on Human acts, and also with some additional remarks in the Treatise on Prudence.)

Also, I feel it wretched that the entirety of probabilism is thrown under the bus by so many Thomists. There are some real dead-ends in the obsessiveness of that era, and the way that the various treatises of moral theology got all messed up. But I just find it romanticism to say that we should hop back over them through history as though there is nothing to be learned therefrom. One of the various shifts in the modern perspective is the crystalization of the notion of "probability." However, I don't think that one needs to make it as new as someone like Hacking does. It has its connection to "topicity" (as Gardeil and others saw), etc. But... I need to read Byrne's text on this, and reread more deeply the work on opinion in Aristotle, by Regis.

[Followup with a good question from a fellow Thomist follower online:]

We are in profound agreement. Although _merely_ knowing the "line" at which one sins would make for a morality that is quite a low bar (and ultimately non-Christian, in my opinion), what ascetical author does not devote time to decrying the sins that one must not fall into? Casuistic analysis is just a more analytical method of doing this. (The downside, of course, is that such general analysis remains, ultimately, at a distance from concrete action. Nonetheless, it provides many cases for consultation and reflection so that one can find the basic boundaries—and, often, in clearer cases, rather certain guidance.) In fact, the complexity of contemporary life—as you so well connect to issues of material cooperation with evil (so rife throughout our experience)—really require a rich awareness of general "cases."
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Then, however, there is "positive casuistry" in the sense of analyzing acts that tend toward perfection more fully. Here too: what ascetical or spiritual author does not take up this kind of discussion? Why should it be excluded from moral theology and moral philosophy. The unique thing about moral analysis is that it is at least remotely an influence on action. Thus, one should readily pass over into the praise of great acts, as well as into analysis of _why_ this or that act (though still rather generic, for this is not prudence) is to be praised (or, in the case of sin, blamed).
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I think that scrupulosity can be avoided so long as one is guided by a good confessor / director (or parent...) to remember that ultimately the virtue of prudence must be personally operative, not merely as applying universal rules (for, as Fr. Gardeil so wonderfully said, there is no prudence written out on paper - and Garrigou-Lagrange is actually just about as strong on this point, something that probably would surprise many on both sides of the Garrigou divide), but as actively trying to live out the life of the virtues. Scrupulosity is a vice (most often "temerity" in Aquinas's lexicon - a sin against "good counsel" in the task of prudence), not a virtue. I'm not sure that we should cater to the quivering problems caused by a vice while trying to figure out what _per se_ belongs to a sound moral methodology. That being said—lest I be thought heartless!—we do need to think about what is most important "from our perspective" when working out a methodology (for every science is "tuned" to our human condition, passing from what we know then pushing onward to what is actually more explanatory and "knowable in itself"). In my opinion, the most important explanatory casuistic phase is when we show cases of perfection, for that helps us to see most clearly why it is that vices / sins are evil, precisely for falling short of human perfection in a given set of circumstances. However, the first explanatory thing we need is likely to see why some course of action is evil / sinful. This orients us like a finger pointing toward the virtue in question.
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Now, as a general rule of thumb, however, I do think it a mistake to present casuistry solely as a list of sins to be avoided. (The overall framework of the probabilism questions did lead to this, unfortunately.) This is perhaps more likely to breed temerity, for it presents the moral landscape like a large domain filled with dangers to be avoided, rather than as the material for making the love of God shine forth in the midst of the circumstances of life.
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Well... There are my rambling thoughts. Now, I best be off to work!
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I think that the following quote from Maritain's essay, "Action: The Perfection of Human Life" (found in _Existence and the Existent_) perfectly balances at once the limits of casuistry and yet also its enduring relevance. (He's not directly addressing it in these terms, but it is "underneath the hood" in my opinion.):

With regard to our contemporary atheistic existentialists, it is not with anguish and sorrow, and with knowledge of its value (like Kierkegaard), but with the pleasure of barbarians and with out knowing what they do, that, along with essence, they sacrifice the ethical universal. In truth, they seem to think that if there were a system of moral rules, these would automatically apply to particular cases, from which it would follow that all morality is defective because it should suffice—but does not— for a young man hesitating between breaking his mother’s heart and joining the Forces of Fighting France to consult a dictionary of precepts to know what to do. In short, they imagine that morality dispenses with conscience, and substitutes its rules both for the invincibly personal judgment of that flexible and subtle faculty purchased at so high a price, as well as for the judgment (also invincibly personal and irreducible to any sort of science) of the virtue of prudence, which is purchased at an even more disturbing price. They replace all that by the chasm of the Pythian oracle because they have eliminated reason and hold the form of morality to consist in pure liberty alone. Let the perplexed young man listen at the cave of this oracle; his liberty itself will tell him how to make use of it.

And let him not be given advice! The least advice would risk blighting his liberty, preventing the beautiful serpent from issuing from the cave. The liberty of these philosophers of liberty is indeed singularly fragile. In uprooting it from reason, they have themselves made it weaker. As for us, we do not fear advice for human liberty. Fill it with as much advice as you like—we know that it is strong enough to digest them all, and that it lives on rational motivations which it manipulates for its purposes and of which it alone knows the efficacy. In sum, by suppressing generality and universal law one sup presses liberty, leaving only chaos thrusting out of the night it resembles. Because in suppressing generality and universal law one suppresses reason, in which liberty has its root (cf. De veritate, q. 24, a. 2: “Totius libertatis radix est in ratione constituta”) and from which so vast a desire flows into man that no explanation on earth and no objective solicitation, except Beatitude seen face to face, suffices to determine it.

A Thought on the Cosmopolitan

"The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men — hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky."

-- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

Or, in longer form:

The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He is always breathing an air of locality. London is a place, to be compared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo. But Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men who regard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, but the winds of the world. The man in the saloon steamer has seen all the races of men, and he is thinking of the things that divide men--diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in the ears as in Europe, blue paint among the ancients, or red paint among the modern Britons. The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men-- hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky. Mr. Kipling, with all his merits, is the globe-trotter; he has not the patience to become part of anything. So great and genuine a man is not to be accused of a merely cynical cosmopolitanism; still, his cosmopolitanism is his weakness. That weakness is splendidly expressed in one of his finest poems, "The Sestina of the Tramp Royal," in which a man declares that he can endure anything in the way of hunger or horror, but not permanent presence in one place. In this there is certainly danger. The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about; dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner in South Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We were inclined to ask, "Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?" But for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

Maritain and the Divine Acceptance of Evil

Jacques Maritain, “Reflections on Theological Knowledge,” Untrammeled Approaches, 257-258:

“Each time that a creature sins (and in each case the creature takes the first initiative, the initiative of nothingness), God is deprived of a joy (‘Above and beyond’ according to our way of looking at things) which was due to Him by another and which that other does not give Him, and something inadmissible to God is produced in the world.  But even before triumphing over what is inadmissible by a greater good which will overcompensate for it later on, God Himself, far from being subject to it, raises it above everything by His consent.  In accepting such a privation (which in no way affects His being but only the creatures relation to Him), He takes it in hand and raises it up like a trophy, attesting to the divinely pure grandeur of His victorious Acceptance (ours is never such except at the cost of some defeat); and this is something that adds absolutely nothing to the intrinsic perfection and glory of the divine Esse, and is eternally precontained in Its essential and supereminent infinity.  For this is an integral part of a mysterious divine perfection which, even though it has reference to the privation of what is due to God by creatures existing at some particular point in time, is infinitely beyond the reach of creatures… This divine perfection is eternally present in Godand, by the infinite transcendence of the Divine Being, is the unnamed exemplar, incapable of being designated by any of our concepts, toward which like blind men we raise our eyes, and which corresponds in uncreated glory what suffering is in us .”

Filial Piety and the Order of Justice

I’m going to be working on a little informal piece on filial piety. Good thing to keep in mind when speaking of justice:

“Just as it belongs to religion [the greatest of moral virtues and the highest form of justice] to give worship to God, so does it belong to piety, in the second place, to give worship to one's parents and one's country.” (Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 101, a. 1).

A very brief remark on the intellectual life.

"The jingling bells of publicity tempt only frivolous minds. Ambition offends eternal truth by subordinating truth to itself." - Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1998), 8.

Domination, Technology, and Human Nature

“The three ideas which have been discussed—”death with dignity” and human autonomy, the distinction between “persons” and “non-persons,” and “quality of life” judgments—al have something in common. They are all used dogmatically, leading to great confidence in our right to control human life. These are areas where the great religious tradition at its best has been restrained by agnosticism and a sense of transcendent mystery. Some believers have tried to combine these two views of life in a crudely simplistic manner. They have identified the freedoms of technology with the freedom given by truth. The result in the public world, if policy flowed from this identification., would be the destruction of cherished political freedoms.”

George Grant, Technology and Justice (Ontario: Anasi, 1986), 115.

A Few Thoughts on Death

While prepping for a week-long course for our deacons, on end-of-life issues, I included these quotes as food for thought (among other quotes).   The first set, from Epictetus's Enchiridion are presented as examples of a noble example of a philosophical approach to death that in some way minimizes its problematic and wrenching character.  Yet, it maintains that there is a moral stance to be taken vis-à-vis death itself.  In class, we'll discuss how it falls short from a Catholic perspective.  The second quote surprisingly is from Karl Rahner.  His little On the Theology of Death has provided a number of edifying passages that I hadn't expected to find in it.  We also have texts from John Climacus and Alexander Schmemann, not included here.

Selections from Epictetus's Enchiridion (trans. Elizabeth Carter)

no. 2: "But if you are averse to sickness, or death, or poverty, you will be wretched. Remove aversion, then, from all things that are not in our control, and transfer it to things contrary to the nature of what is in our control. But, for the present, totally suppress desire: for, if you desire any of the things which are not in your own control, you must necessarily be disappointed; and of those which are, and which it would be laudable to desire, nothing is yet in your possession. Use only the appropriate actions of pursuit and avoidance; and even these lightly, and with gentleness and reservation."

no. 5: "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself."

no. 21: "Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you win never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything."

From K. Rahner's On the Theology of Death

"Clearly, [death] cannot be an act of man if it is conceived as an isolated point at the end of life, but only if it is understood as an act of fulfillment (a concept which an ontology of the end of a spiritual being can fully justify), achieved through the act of the whole of life in such a manner that death is axiologically present all through human life.  Man is enacting his death, as his own consummation, through the deed of his life, and in this way death is present in his actions, that is, in each of his free acts, in which he freely disposes of his whole person.  Consequently, the death present in these acts of life explicitly or implicitly, can be mortal sin.  In order to try to point out briefly how man may make a mortal sin of the deed of his life, it can only be a question of indicating how he can, more or less explicitly, understand and enact his death sinfully all through his life, and not merely at its end.  There can be no question of showing how each mortal sin, implicitly and tacitly also includes a false and sinful understanding of death."

Garrigou-Lagrange on Manuals and Casuistry (Florilegium)

Manuals - Quote 1

Now, is this the same as saying that critical realism dispels every obscurity.  Oh, most certainly not!  And while certain manuals of Thomistic philosophy speak little about the mystery of knowledge (because they have for their end, above all else, an insistence upon that which is clear and absolutely certain about knowledge), if one were to ask true Thomists to write expressly concerning the mystery of sense knowledge, or upon the mystery of intellectual knowledge, and upon their relations to one another, they could easily show that we find here a marvelous chiaroscuro, more beautiful than all of those painted by Rembrandt.  And as, in this chiaroscuro, the two elements that compose it make their arguments mutually, the true Thomist does not wish to suppress the mystery but, instead, to show its true place.  Concerning this, he has as much sense as does anyone—certainly much more not only than the materialist but also than the Cartesian idealist—for, not wishing to deny any of the elements of the problem, no matter how distant they may be from one another (i.e. matter and spirit, the sensible and the intelligible), he knows that the intimate mode of their union remains (and will remain) forever profoundly mysterious.  This mystery remains for us to show, though without diminishing anything in regard to the first and unshakable certitude of which we have spoken in this chapter. 

Manuals - Quote 2 (Less important)

Today, the question is proposed of knowing if this Wolffian manner of dress—if not, indeed, this Spinozist manner of dress—without fully being a straightjacket does not interfere with the natural movements of Thomistic Peripateticism’s arms, so to speak.  Many scholastics think that it does, even among those who (practically speaking) must follow the new order, which prevails among many of the manuals and which has been adopted by many seminaries and universities.  Some masters have, indeed, reacted in returning in their works and lectures to the classical order commonly followed up until the 18th century.  Thus, proceed his eminence Cardinal Mercier,[1] Fr. Gredt,[2] Fr. Hugon,[3] and Jacques Maritain,[4] as well as all those who give themselves over to the direct study of Aristotle and St. Thomas’s commentaries on him.  The new laws related to the doctorates in theology and philosophy promulgated by the Holy See in 1931[5] also enumerate the parts of philosophy in the following order: logic, cosmology, psychology, critique, ontology, natural theology, ethics and natural law [lit. ius naturale].

Manuals - Quote 3 (A favorite of mine because of its "bite")

This opposition between the method of a philosophical treatise and a theological treatise is particularly salient if one compares, on the one hand, natural philosophy, which ends (according to Aristotle) by the proof of the existence of the First Mover, to, on the other hand, the cosmological part of the Summa theologiae, which begins in ST I q.44 and 45 by a study of creation.  Likewise, one will find the same difference between, on the one hand, the De anima of Aristotle, commented on by St. Thomas, and, on the other hand, the Treatise on Man in the Summa theologiae.  Following a method that ascends step-by-step, the De anima, considers the vegetative soul, then the sensitive soul, then at last the rational soul and the great problems that are posed concerning it.  However, the Treatise on Man in the Summa theologiae from the first question deals with the problem of the immortality of the rational soul, the image of God, and the problem of its specific distinction from the case of the angels (of which the theologian has already spoken according to a descending manner).  The order to follow in psychology, at least in a work of Peripatetic philosophy, is obviously that of the De anima and not that of the theological treatise De homine.[1]  Granted, it is easy to make a manual of philosophy by transcribing the parts of the Summa theologiae that are related to being, truth, the sensible world, the soul, God, and moral thought. However, a philosophical treatise ought to be something other than such a juxtaposition of texts.

Manuals - Quote 4 (Not a bad comment either)

To present this doctrine concerning potency and act in another, a priori manner as happens in many manuals, is to suggest that it has merely fallen from the sky or that it is only a simple, pseudo-philosophical translation of contemporary language, leaving the necessity of establishing its value, as has been said by Henri Bergson.  In such an undertaking, there is no longer any profundity in analyzing matters; one is content with some quasi-nominal definitions of potency and act, and one no longer sees well in what way and why potency differs from the simple possible, from privation, and from imperfect act (or the force / Leibnizian virtuality, which is only an impeded act).[1]  Likewise, one can merely limit oneself merely to enunciating the relations of potency and act in the axioms proposed as commonly received in the School [i.e., the Thomist school, Suarezian school, etc.] without seeing their true value on which, nevertheless, everything depends.  It is necessary to admit this fact: this fundamental chapter of metaphysics, i.e. regarding act and potency, remains in a state of great intellectual poverty in many manuals when one compares them to the first two books of Aristotle’s Physics and to the commentary that St. Thomas has left us concerning it.  In such cases, someone in philosophy has certainly greatly neglected the method of discovery, which is founded upon the very nature of our intellect—an intellect that is indeed the very least among intellects.

Manuals - Quote 5 (Interesting point on prudence and moral theology)

As has been noted, the ever present importance of this treatise on prudence would appear clearly to modern thinkers if one would only add two words to its title: “Concerning prudence and the connected moral virtues, in relation to the formation of the conscience.”  Prudence, which directs all the moral virtues, is so fundamental that no human act is good without also being prudent.  And despite this fact, numerous modern manuals of moral theology, which do give a large place to the treatise on conscience, pass quickly in silence over this virtue, the principal cardinal virtue.  They sometimes dedicate only eight or ten pages to it and appear to forget that right and certain conscience is an act of prudence, of which one must determine its formal object, proper nature, and its connection with the other virtues 

Manuals / Casuistry (Taken from De Revelatione)

Some modern manuals of moral theology contain almost nothing else but casuistic theology, and in them moral theology appears like a science of sins to be avoided as grave or minor, rather than a science concerning virtues to be perfected.  Likewise, many modern treatises of ascetic theology and mystical theology do not proceed enough from the due foundation of moral theology concerning the nature and progress of the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and thus they are constructed in too empirical a manner, and are lacking in doctrinal value.  From these defects is the notion of the eminent unity of Sacred Theology diminished.

Casuistry (Taken from De beatitudine) All gathered together  V

Once upon a time and up to the time of St. Thomas, moral and dogmatic theology, as we will see, were, so to speak, mixed together.  St. Thomas clearly distinguished them inasmuch as he treats of dogmatic theology in the first and third part of his Summa theologiae.  But, later on, certain theologians, such as Gabriel Vasquez,[1] said that they are two distinct sciences, two scientifichabitus.  And according to this tendency, moral theology, becoming more and more distinct from dogmatic theology, leaves to dogmatic theology questions concerning grace, merit and the nature of the infused virtues, and in the end often is nothing other than casuistic theology, which, according to us, is only the inferior application of moral theology, just as ascetical theology and mystical theology are its higher applications.  The reign of casuistic theology was from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19thcentury....

Whence, to distinguish dogmatic theology and moral theology as two sciences is no longer to consider the elevation and simplicity of the formal object quod and quo of them.  Therefore, it represents a kind of materialistic tendency, which is all the more apparent as moral theology is more greatly distinguished from dogmatic theology, ultimately leading moral theology to be reduced to casuistry, in which nearly nothing remains of the loftiness of the great moral theology that is dwelled upon in this second part of the Summa theologiae.

Casuistic theology is the application of moral theology to the solution of cases of conscience inasmuch as in a given case there attends a grave or lesser obligation [obligatio sub gravi aut sub levi].  Thus, as is obvious, it is rather concerned with sins to be avoided than with virtues to be exercised.  But, casuistic theology does not seem to be something per se distinct from prudence; for perfect, right, and certain conscience is an act of prudence....

But, from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century casuistic theology prevailed, for many during this era set aside all the properly doctrinal questions concerning the final end, human acts, the foundation of morality, the nature of law, the nature of the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the various states of life of men, and many thinkers almost exclusively treated matters concerning the law practically considered, at greater length about conscience, about probable conscience, and for any given virtue, after the  enunciation of some principles, they posited cases of conscience for the sake of determining in particular cases what is obligatory with regard to mortal and venial sin [sub gravi vel sub levi].  In this way, moral theology becomes more the science concerning sins to be avoided than concerning the virtues to be exercised and perfected.  Whence, this merely casuistical theology is devoid of efficacy for motivating men toward the good.  Whence, from this moment, moral theology declines and often descends into laxism.  Above all, in such a conception of theology, ascetical and mystical theology do not have a doctrinal foundation anymore. Therefore, many write ascetical and mystical books without any doctrinal value.

            Among these casuistic theologians, one must cite Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589-1669), Paul Laymann (1574-c.1635), Hermann Busenbaum (1600-1668), and others.

            In this time, namely in the 18th century, there appeared a man sent by God to save casuistry from its defects, the chief of the modern moralists, St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1696-1787), Doctor of the Church and Founder of the Redemptorists.  He wrote many works, especially ascetical ones.  His moral works are greatly known to all and have been praised greatly by the Popes.  Among these works are: Theologia moralis, Homo apostolicus, and Praxis confessarii.  He proceeds in a manner that is less speculative and more practical than St. Thomas, and devising Equiprobabilism, he saved casuistry from the defects of the probabilists and the laxists.

            However, afterwards, in the schools in which the rudiments were taught, the scholastic method and casuistic method were united, along with certain ascetical applications.  Nevertheless, in the universities, there were generally two distinct cursus that were taken: one in a scholastic manner, the other in a more practical manner, namely in the casuistic manner.  But now there also was established a distinct cursus of ascetico-mystical theology.

            At the end of the 19th century, with [the encyclicals of] Leo XIII, Thomism resurrected, so to speak, and therefore, many authors divided moral theology nearly as did St. Thomas.  Nevertheless, the influence of the defects of casuistic theology still remained in many in a significant manner.  For, it is often the case today that many doctrinal questions are removed from moral theology, such as doctrinal questions concerning human acts, and the foundation of morality; likewise, the treatises on the passions, on the habitus in general, on grace, and the treatises on the nature of the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are removed. Moreover, the treatises on grace and the infused virtues are often sent into dogmatic theology.  To this situation, it must be said: If moral theology does not treat of the nature of the virtues and of the nature of merit, how can it scientifically explain human acts that are salutary through their relation to the supernatural final end?  Science must be knowledge of things through their causes, and the causes of saving and meritorious acts are the infused virtues whose nature must be exactly understood.  But, in many manuals of moral theology, matters proceed in this way: (1) concerning the final end, (2) concerning human acts, (3) concerning laws, (4) concerning conscience, (5) concerning sins, (6) very briefly concerning the virtues in a general manner; after this, there is instituted a treatise concerning moral theology in particular matters in which the three theological virtues are treated, as are the four cardinal virtues, not, however, by determining the nature of these virtues, but by explaining their necessity in an exceedingly brief manner and especially treating of the sins to be avoided against them.  To these matters, there is connected a moral part of the theological treatise on the sacraments